This lecture is part of the University YMCA's fall series, Beyond the Rhetoric: Key Issues in the 2012 Elections.

This semester's free, public lectures will feature expert views on vital policy questions and shed light on local, state, and national races as they unfold. Focusing on larger trends beyond the candidates' qualifications, the series will peer deeply into current debates between diverse sociopolitical and socioeconomic sectors of the American public -- debates that often lay bare not only philosophical differences on governance, but also a worsening enmity.

Lectures take place every Friday at 12 noon: September 14 - November 2.